Saturday is another exciting day of String Project! We are delighted to let you know that cellist Brooks Whitehouse and bassist Paul Sharpe, the “Low and Lower“, cello/bass duo, will be visiting String Project this Saturday. They will be working will some of our students during to 9:00 & 10:00 o’clock as indicated on the attached schedule. The duo will have a great concert during our11:00 hour! All students will be escorted to Bates Recital Hall by their 10:00 teachers for the concert. For more information on Low and Lower, please visit their website: http://www.getlowandlower.com/home

This is a friendly reminder that there will be no String Project Saturday classes on March 8th or 15th as the university is closed for spring break. There will be no lessons for full time students during the week of March 10th. String Project private lessons will resume the week of March 17th and Saturday classes on March 22nd.

This weekend is Explore UT, which means that parking will be very limited. Please make sure you leave much earlier than you normally do for parking and getting into the building. There will be many school buses surrounding the music building. I have attached the Explore UT bus parking map, this will give you an idea on where we will be parking all the buses. N+ permit holders will still be allowed to park in the San Jacinto Garage and N permit holders will need to park in locations where they are not parking school buses. This includes East 25th Street, Trinity Street, East 23rd Street, and Robert Dedman Dr. There will still be street parking available on Dean Keeton between Red River and San Jacinto.

Schedule Notes:

During the 9 & 10 o’clock hours you will notice some classes with 2 rooms listed. Make sure that your students go to the first room listed for the play down rehearsal. Students will go to the rooms in parenthesis once the combined play down rehearsal is over.

Lemony Snicket Family Concert tickets:

We have some Lemony Snicket tickets still available on a first come first served basis. They will be available at the main table starting at 8:30.

No String Project on March 8th & 15th:

There will be no Saturday classes meeting on these days due to spring break.

Saturday is another exciting day of String Project! The Menuhin International Violin Competition will be taking place at the BSoM this weekend so needless to say, the building will be very busy. We have cleared our scheduled rooms with the BSoM scheduling office for this weekend, however, make sure to check the posted schedules on Saturday for last minute changes.

1. PARENTING THE DEVELOPING MUSICIAN – PANEL DISCUSSION – Saturday 22 February 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM Butler School of Music, Bates Recital Hall. Laurie Scott, Associate Professor of Music and Human Learning at the University of Texas at Austin and director of the University of Texas String Project, sits down with former Menuhin Competition Junior First-Prize winner Kevin Zhu and his father, Daniel, for a discussion about parenting a young musician. This hour-long forum is free and open to all who want to learn and share experiences. Discussion topics include creating a supportive learning environment, balancing social, academic, and musical development, the value of excellent instruction, and the benefits of a musical peer group. This event occurs concurrently with the first day of the free Senior Rounds, a great opportunity for parents and students to witness amazing developing musicians in action.

2. Lemony Snicket Family Concert

We have been given the opportunity to offer 100 families 3 tickets each to attend the Family Concert at the Long Center on Saturday March 1, 2014. The tickets will be distributed on a first come first served basis starting at 8:30 on Saturday Morning February 22 at the main string project table.

We ask that families who receive tickets commit to attending this event. Please check your calendars to be sure you are able to attend before taking the tickets. We do not want to have any of the complimentary string project seats left open. DO NOT PLAN ON SECURING TICKETS UNLESS YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY SURE YOU CAN

ATTEND THIS CONCERT.

3. Practice masterclasses will NOT meet this Saturday, but will resume next Saturday, March 1. We have now filled every weekend between now and May and will not be taking any more requests. Those who emailed me first have priority and will be sent a schedule for the remainder of the semester.

4. The deadline for this recording is this Saturday! Students performing advanced literature are invited to submit a video recording of their performance for consideration for the concert. Selected students will perform their concerto accompanied by the String Project. This audition is limited to students in Advanced Orchestra or Chamber Orchestra. To enter, please submit a DVD or computerized video of the student performing the selected repertoire memorized with piano accompaniment. Video auditions tapes are due by noon on Saturday, February 22nd. The concerto festival will be Saturday, March 29th.

Laurie Scott, Associate Professor of Music and Human Learning at the University of Texas at Austin and director of the University of Texas String Project, sits down with former Menuhin Competition Junior First-Prize winner Kevin Zhu and his father, Daniel, for a discussion about parenting a young musician.

This hour-long forum is free and open to all who want to learn and share experiences. Discussion topics include creating a supportive learning environment, balancing social, academic, and musical development, the value of excellent instruction, and the benefits of a musical peer group. This event occurs concurrently with the first day of the free Senior Rounds, a great opportunity for parents and students to witness amazing developing musicians in action.

I would like to invite your child to participate in a piano group class that will be offered during Spring break Monday through Thursday, March 10-13. Three times are currently available, 9-9:45am, 10-10:45am and 11-11:45am. The class is open to String Project students 4-8 years old. No piano learning experience necessary! And it is free!

This program will take place at UT in the piano laboratory (MRH 4.184). Students will play electronic keyboards equipped with headsets. They will enjoy a variety of musical experiences while learning the fundamentals of piano. By the end of the program, students will be able to play a familiar melody on the piano.

1. Attached you will find the schedule for this weekend. Thank you for being so flexible and understanding with the room situation on Saturday mornings. We try very hard to schedule the rooms with the BSoM scheduling office far in advance, but it is out of our hands when get to the building in the morning and the monitor does not have keys or we have been double booked with other events happening at the music school. Please understand that your child will not always been in the same room as the previous Saturday. And as always, please check the posted schedules on the walls on Saturday mornings for any last minute/unforeseen changes. Thank you for your patience.

2. I failed to mention that Dr. Shu-Yi Scott, SP parent and teacher, will be holding practice masterclasses this semester along with Dr. Laurie Scott. Again, these classes are to help parents and students plan and implement positive and effective home practice sessions. The masterclasses will happen during the 11 o’clock hour. We have already had a lot of interest to participate via email. Look out for an email from the office regarding the Saturday we will schedule you and you children this spring. The masterclasses will be open to observation as a way to help all of the parents and students in the program understand more deeply the process of teaching and learning. Make sure to check the schedule during the 11 o’clock hour for location.

3. Students performing advanced literature are invited to submit a video recording of their performance for consideration for the concert. Selected students will perform their concerto accompanied by the String Project. This audition is limited to students in Advanced Orchestra or Chamber Orchestra. To enter, please submit a DVD or computerized video of the student performing the selected repertoire memorized with piano accompaniment. Video auditions tapes are due by noon on Saturday, February 22nd. The concerto festival will be Saturday, March 29th.

4. Attached you will find a revised version of the spring calendar. There have been minimal changes, mostly pertaining to the month of April. This version of the calendar has not yet been updated on the website, but we hope to get this up soon.

Dr. Laurie Scott and Dr. Shu-Yi Scott (parent and cellist) will be starting practice masterclasses this Saturday as an initiative to help parents and students plan and implement positive and effective home practice sessions.

On designated Saturday mornings during the 11:00 hour, Dr. Scott will be coaching individual students and their parents through a home practice routine. Students and parents will go through typical routines used at home and will be coached on ways to improve habit strength, communication, skill development and mastery.

The masterclasses will be open to observation as a way to help all of the parents and students in the program understand more deeply the process of teaching and learning. Students and parents will have an opportunity to sign up for a practice masterclass via email. Requests will be handled on a first come first served basis, or in the order I receive your email.

This Saturday, all students should report at 11:00 for our annual Honors Recital in Bates Recital Hall. It should be a splendid concert. Also, there are no BSoM auditions this weekend, meaning that we will be back in MRH classrooms with our main table in the lobby of the ground floor. Make sure that you check the schedule attached to see where your child’s class meets during the 9:00 and 10:00 hours, as they are probably different rooms from where you have been meeting the past few weeks.

Also, Elizabeth Oakes, professor of viola from University of Iowa and former String Project student will be giving some of our students a masterclass at 9:00am this Saturday. We invite all violin and viola T&R classes to attend the masterclass during the 9:00 hour in the Recital Studio. Ms. Oakes will also be giving a lecture for parents during the 10:00 o’clock also in the Recital Studio. The lecture will be focused on her musical journey from Austin to becoming a professional teacher and performer. We invite all parents to attend this as well.